


Hold Me, New York

by SerenStone



Series: Destiny 2 Prompts [2]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Discussion of BDSM, F/M, Multi, Off Screen Death, We Stan Ghosts in this House
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:08:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21995284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerenStone/pseuds/SerenStone
Summary: Prompt: Meghan Tonjes' song "Hold Me, New York"Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=midjVwVV9kQ
Relationships: Ghost/Guardian (Destiny)
Series: Destiny 2 Prompts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1583290
Comments: 9
Kudos: 15





	1. Arthil

The first time it happened, Arthil had taken the night to catch up with Astrophel since Shry was planning to stay in the little tavern she liked for most of the night. He had been so certain of her safety, then. Even though he’d seen her bones half rotted away, she seemed indestructible; it had honestly never occurred to him she might get hurt off duty. Then she met him on the street outside the tavern with a grin he hadn’t seen before and bruises on her throat, her arms, her thighs. 

“Oh!” he exclaimed, rushing to heal her. “What-”

Her grin was gone. “Oh, I guess that makes sense,” she sighed. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“What happened? What got that close to you? Why didn’t you call for me?” Arthil felt wretched. He should have been able to sense it when she was in danger. 

“I wasn’t in any danger, sweetie,” she reached up and cupped his shell in her hands and drew him close. “I promise.”

“Then what-”

“Can I explain back on the jumpship?”

Arthil reached out with the full range of his sensors looking for threats. When he found none he nodded in her hands and let her carry him to their transport. Once they were in the hold he darted to the console and checked all of the security settings. Satisfied, he turned to find her picking up a comb and beginning to detangle the hair that fell to her thighs. 

“You’re familiar with sex, Arthil?”

“I am not in a mood to be redirected, Shry.” Arthil’s voice was harder than he’d used with her.

“Sometimes people enjoy consensual infliction of minor injuries,” she continued, her voice gentle and airy. “I asked for those bruises.”

Arthil was silent until her hair was fully detangled. “After everything you’ve been through,” he said quietly. “You want pain?”

Shry sighed and set about braiding her hair. “Sometimes, depending on the kind of pain.”

“But pain is a-”

“Weakness? Vulnerability? Luxury I can’t afford in this line of work?”

“LUXURY?” Arthil was surprised to find himself shouting.

Shry leaned away from him without moving her feet, her expression unhappy. “It’s not like I can let any sort of vulnerability linger when I’m in the field,” she said as if that explained anything.

Arthil felt cold. “You spent your whole life in pain,” he choked out. “Why would you-”

“I don’t remember that. The only thing that exists of it is that bracelet. It’s not- It’s not real to me.” Shry shrugged. “I don’t know what that girl’s personality was. I don’t know what she did and didn’t like. I’m Shry, a Guardian. My first memory is you tutting over the state of my hair.”

Something in her explanation felt off, as if there were layers of truthfulness and falsehood to her words. It hurt. “Pain means something is wrong!”

She turned and drew a strip of twine from a drawer to fasten the end of the braid. When she turned back to him her expression was unhappy but resigned. “Okay. It won’t happen again.”

“Thank you,” he breathed, relieved. “Can you explain why it happened?”

“It happened because I asked for it and they were kind enough to oblige me.”

“But why did you ask for it?”

“Because I wanted it.”

“Why did you want it?”

Shry exhaled roughly through her nose. “I obviously don’t know how to explain it to you or I would have by now.”

Arthil finally registered that she was still leaning away from him, her shoulders were higher than usual, her neck and jaw were tense, and her eyes were rhythmically moving between him and possible exits. She was afraid. He immediately took stock of all potential threats detected in his scans and the jumpship's and found none. “Shry?” his voice flanged and broke.

“Yes?”

“I’m scared.”

Some of the stiffness went from her shoulders and her focus came to rest on him. “You’re scaring me.”

Now Arthil knew what wretched meant. Speechless, he stared at her uncomprehending.

“Bruises, Arthil, that I choose to get, and you react as if I was trying to commit suicide or worse. If you react like this every time I decide to do something you don’t like, I-” she stopped to take a breath and didn’t continue.

_Overreaction. Perhaps. Overly emotional reaction. Probably. Better reaction: calmly wait to discuss until privacy is acquired and then ask for reasons and explanations without raising his voice or being judgmental. If he didn’t trust Shry, why was he her ghost? If he didn’t trust her, she’d stop trusting him._

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “I overreacted. I just- I- You- I only just found you,” he trailed off, unsure how to explain.

Her lips pressed together and she nodded slowly. “Okay. I think I understand.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” he said slowly. “But I am afraid for y- no. I’m afraid for me. I’m afraid of going back to not having you.”

“I don’t think that’s possible, Arthil. Not unless we choose it.”

“I didn’t say that my fears were logical,” he admitted.

Shry tilted her head, her eyes assessing him the way they had the first time they’d met. “You ghosts are far more human than I’d realized.”

Arthil paused and considered her words. “You’ve adjusted better to you being a Guardian than I have,” he decided.

She smiled, some of her usual mirth visible. “Maybe that’s why Guardians don’t remember. So they have nothing else to compare this to.”

Arthil rather thought that sounded horrible but decided not to say so. “I will try to do better.”

“I know,” Shry said, slowly relaxing. “Thank you.”

“You- How do you know?”

“You don’t make the same mistake twice,” she finally settled into the pilot’s seat, glancing over her shoulder contemplatively. “And I know you care about doing things right. I know you care about me. So, I trust you.”

A shudder ran through Arthil’s less corporeal parts. “Thank you,” he managed. “I hope I prove worthy.”

Shry’s smile turned wry. “You will.” Years later, Arthil would comprehend that when she said “You will,” she left off the rest of her sentence. She meant, “You will, or else I won’t be around to see it.”

The next time it happened, and every time after that, if Shry had bruises after their times apart they were not visible ones. Arthil would wait until she expressed any amount of discomfort to ask if she wished for healing. The arguments about her injuries didn’t stop, they simply changed contexts. He worried over her choices in combat, her constant volunteering for extraordinarily dangerous solo missions, the speed with which she flew the ship, the recklessness she displayed in all things. Every time she would turn to him and smile. “Why should I be afraid if you’re with me?”

And Arthil would squirm in his shell because of course he was with her and because her faith in him was uplifting and terrifying. He knew he wasn’t perfect. He knew he could make mistakes. He often did. What if the mistake he made hurt her? But her trust was so precious, her faith so inspiring that he found himself unable to do more than stay as close to her as he could and hope for the best.


	2. Isaac

The first time it happened, Isaac had agreed to spend the night on the jumpship cataloguing and archiving the data from their recent missions, decryptions, translations, and other projects while Shry spent time with a group of civilians she’d met. He knew she found trouble everywhere she went; he expected that if she didn’t get a break from his company she would start causing trouble instead of finding it. When she returned to the jumpship with her short hair sticking up at odd angles, bruises around her neck, wrists, knees, ankles, and a mulish expression he scanned her a second time to confirm that he hadn’t misinterpreted his sensors. 

Wondering most at her expression, Isaac raised himself slightly. “Are you angry?” he asked.

She stopped in her tracks and stared at him. “What?”

“Your hands are in fists, your jaw is clenched, and you are frowning. Are you unhappy?”

“I-” she took a breath that didn’t seem to sit well in her lungs. “No. I’m not angry or unhappy.”

“Oh.” He considered the data and decided he still didn’t understand but maybe it wasn’t important that he did outside of one thing. He hadn’t seen her hurt outside of a mission before. “Do you desire healing?” 

She stiffened and her jaw worked. “No.”

Isaac bobbed up and down once to acknowledge and then turned back to his console. Perhaps the bruises were the desired result of this interaction? He found most people baffling, but humans were especially confounding. She walked slowly past him to the deck and settled in the pilot’s chair. Moments later they were well on their way to Mars. He was just realizing that he had failed to alphabetize his to-do list when he heard a breath that sounded wet. Isaac was scanning Shry almost before he could turn around. She was crying. Leaning to the left. Arthil. 

Sagira had asked him once how he felt about being her second Ghost. He told her honestly that once he had learned to stay to her right rather than her left, it was no trial save that he could not help her. He flew to the storage drawers and extracted a cloth Devrim told him was called a handkerchief and gently placed it on the arm of her chair. Then he settled on a surface near her chair and waited, silent witness to her grief. 

The next time it happened went much the same, as did the third, fourth, and fifth though she cried less each time. By the seventh time he decided he wanted more data. “Was this the desired outcome of your excursion?” he queried from his place at the console.

Shry turned to him, visibly confused. “What?”

“The bruises. You seem to like them.”

“I do like them,” she agreed hesitantly. 

“So they are the desired outcome?”

“Part of it.”

Isaac was pleased. He enjoyed complex desires. “What else do you seek in these excursions?”

“Enjoyable sex,” she said bluntly. “A few orgasms. Being able to step back from being in control for a while.”

That clarified a great deal for Isaac though the last part was still nebulous. “You pursue a loss of control?”

“No, I want to let someone else be in control.”

Isaac considered. Shry had turned down positions of leadership before, leaving her free to be friendly and available to the Vanguard. He knew from the way she often acted against their orders that she did not trust them implicitly. He knew that she had concerns about their perspective and connection. He knew that she never gave up control of herself or her decisions to her commanding officers. It seemed reasonable that that could be tiresome and that she might seek some context where she could feel comfortable relinquishing that responsibility. “And you prefer to do this in a sexual context?”

She opened her mouth to respond then reconsidered and took a moment before she began. “It’s a place where I know how to do so safely.”

Isaac considered. The people she had visited with last night were all non-Guardians. Even if she had allowed them to restrain her, she more than likely would still have been able to free herself and escape if she had need. He didn’t like the idea of her extending her trust to people so immediately, nor did he really like the risk factor involved. Who knew what their motivations were in agreeing to participate? 

“Is this desire one you need other people to fulfill?”

“I can’t give up control to myself and actually give up control,” Shry pointed out, her voice tinged with humor.

“I misspoke,” Isaac admitted. “Is this not a desire I could fulfill?”

Shry’s eyes blew wide and she watched him in silence for a long moment before she frowned. “Isaac, you’re a person.”

He considered. “I suppose,” he said begrudgingly. 

Another few minutes of silence and then, “Is that something you want?”

“Unclear antecedent.”

“To… to be the one who… lets me let go.”

That was not a direction from which he had considered the situation. “Yes,” he eventually agreed. “I want you to be able to relinquish control whenever you wish or need and I want you to be able to do so in a situation in which you feel fully safe not simply unthreatened.”

Isaac usually refrained from using the word stare because he himself had a habit of looking at the subject of attention for extended periods of time and he did not consider it staring to do so. However, Shry truly seemed to be staring at him in that moment. Unsure, Isaac accessed the sensors of the jumpship to ensure that nothing about his appearance was unusual. Then his own words occurred to him and his certainty waned further. “That is assuming that you feel safe with me.”

“I do,” she noted, her focus on him still unusual. “I feel safe with you.”

“I am glad,” he noted.

Shry licked her lips. “Did you have something particular in mind?”

The plates of Isaac’s shell shifted against each other. “For what?”

“Taking control.”

“Yes, several.”

“What?”

“If you know what’s coming, how have you given up control?”

Shry watched him for a long moment before she moved closer and accessed the console herself, using it to connect to the local networks in the Last City. She pulled up a forum post titled BDSM Consent Checklists. “This shows several templates for consent agreements. It’s sexual in nature but it’s what I’m familiar with so I’m using it as an example in order to say that even if I don’t know what’s coming, I want to have the opportunity to say no.”

Isaac downloaded the entirety of the post and analyzed it before quickly trolling through the rest of the forum for further information. By the time he was satisfied with his understanding of this new information and concepts, Shry had bathed and put on her warlock robes in place of her street clothes. Isaac opened a new file on the console and began filling it based on the templates from the site along with a few original ideas. “I have completed creation of an appropriate form, I believe. I am willing to update it as needed.” Shry went back to staring at him for long enough that he considered his words again. “If my assistance is something you are interested in,” he corrected.

Her silence continued as she skimmed through the form he’d made. When she looked up at him from the console there was something in her eyes he had never seen before. “I want to try.”


End file.
